A Q&A with David Tschetter, advanced UAV pilot, Shady Lane Hutterite Colony
By Beverly Lomosad
David Tschetter is a go-getter. Put a task in front of him, and he will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Yes, whatever it takes – like when he dangled from a plane in mid-air while capturing nadir images of unseeded acres that the Shady Lane Hutterite Colony was making a compensation claim for. That was about five years ago, and that marked the start of the colony embracing technology to document its crop damage. Thanks to the arrival of the drone technology, coupled with the rapid pace in the development of imaging software, Tschetter didn’t need to pull the same stunt anymore. With the drone, he now has an eye in the sky. And gone are the days when he had to manually stitch together a collection of up to 500 stand-alone images to create an orthomosaic image; a software now automates that process. For Tschetter, the drone technology is the future of crop-damage assessment.
When did the colony first start to embrace technology in its farm operation?
We have a strong background in agronomy, soil biology and plant health even before we came up from Crossfield and establish the colony in Wanham in 2002. We’ve used technology for mapping pesticide and fertilizer-use efficiency. We also have a cow-calf operation, and in this day and age, when it comes to livestock, feed costs will make or break you. So, it’s all about finding efficiencies. In 2004, we started working with a company with a suite of technological innovations in the agri-space for in-depth agronomy.
How did you end up using technology as well to assess crop damage?
We had some crop damage that needed to be inspected and assessed in August 2022, or around that time, but we were told there was no AFSC (Agriculture Financial Services Corp.) adjuster who could come. By then, I have been flying drones over our fields and have done some work to build drone imagery for assessing wildlife damage. I showed my work to AFSC to see if it would accept my drone footage and process our claim. We got approved and received our compensation payout. We’ve been collecting data on wildlife damage since.
We started using technology to document crop damage about five years ago when there was overland flooding, and a significant potion of our land was never seeded. So, we needed to put in a claim for the unseeded acres. I have a software that can georeference an image from the sky, and I have a digital camera with a wide-angle, 16mm lens. So, I phoned a friend who has a plane, and we flew to take some pictures. We got the plane as high as it possibly could to get a good visual of our fields and banked it as steeply as it could while I snapped pictures as vertically straight down as possible. Then I took the photos into a software and stitched them together to build an orthomosaic image. I used to manually create an orthomosaic image with sometimes as many as 500 stand-alone photos involved; now, the software automates the process.
To be accurate, I made sure that my orthomosaic image had reference points, such as a road or power poles. And we know that, 98% of the time, a quarter section is roughly 804-by-804 metres. This was pre-drone. But, at that time, drones were just about to come into the scene, and it’s something AFSC was very much aware about.
Talk a little bit about your background.
I’ve been an RTK (Real Time Kinematics) surveyor for about 30 years, and that, sort of, ties in to what I’m doing now with the drone technology. As a surveying technology, RTK provides better accuracy and precision. I’m using an RTK drone, and that takes surveying to the next level in terms of accuracy and precision. Before the arrival of the drone technology, we largely leaned on satellite imaging for things like zoning. Satellite imaging has improved over the years, but back then the pixel size started off at 30 metres; so, the image resolution was very low. From satellite imaging, we studied better ways of doing things. We looked at purchasing a sensor, but it was very expensive back then, and the device had to be mounted on an aircraft to use it. But it was only a matter of time before it shrank enough in size it can now fit underneath a drone.
In 2021, AFSC announced partnering with Olds College to use drone imagery to assist with assessments in hail-damaged fields. Why do you think wildlife damage was not part of that database project?
From my initial meeting with AFSC, I then was introduced to the person in charge of the agency’s research and development in Lacombe. I think the AFSC-Olds College project was for assessing hail and drought damage. From my understanding, AFSC had actually earmarked 30,000 acres in the Peace County for a drone imagery project involving wildlife damage. In one project, AFSC invited me to participate, and I did.
Are drones now widely used in crop-damage assessment?
They are definitely catching on with more agricultural producers. In fact, we now have several agri-producers around the area, who collectively represent a fair amount of landholdings, that we fly drones for. I think it’s only a matter of time before drones will gain wide traction. Producers often have no idea as to the full extent of their crop damage. An orthomosaic image will be able to scope out the damage precisely and accurately. As well, as things stand, there are many compensation claims and few AFSC inspectors.
Say, a producer comes to you for your drone service. What happens next?
First, we will sit down and set our expectations and determine our best approach to provide our service. If, for example, a producer is concerned about wildlife damage, then I would look for areas that incurred some damage. Chances are, those same areas will get trampled again in the next growing season. Animals are habitual; they’ll just keep coming back. So, approaches could vary depending on the nature of the crop damage as well as the crops grown. The nice thing about the drone technology is it’s surveying from the air. So, if a producer has unseeded acres, one pass would sometimes suffice to assess damage. This year marks our first year to use a multi-spectral sensor, which comes with six different lenses and a gimbal pivot support so that it is always pointed vertically straight down.
What is involved when you deploy a drone?
You create a mission prior to launching a drone. So, you pre-program your desired outcome, and the drone executes what you set it out to accomplish.
Contact:
- Location: Wanham
- Phone: (780) 557-9902
- E-mail: david@shadylane.farm